You Need To Watch ‘Virunga’: The Most Intense Documentary Of The Oscar Race

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The Oscar-nominated, Leonardo DiCaprio-backed documentary involving the most tear-jerking gorillas in Africa is on Netflix and you really need to watch it. It was neck-and-neck with the documentary about Edward Snowden, Citizenfour (which picked up the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature), yet Netflix’s Virunga was so dangerous to film it almost didn’t get made.

Deep in the Congo lies Virunga National Park, home to the world’s last mountain gorillas, who view the park rangers who protect them as family. André Bauma, primary caretaker of the endangered clan, explains throughout the film why he risks his life every day to save theirs against dangerous military invasions, poaching, and threats from oil companies looking to take advantage of the country’s underground wealth. The film, told through Bauma’s perspective, as well as Virunga’s head park ranger and French journalist Mélanie Gouby, caught the attention of Leonardo DiCaprio after its Tribeca Film Festival premiere last spring, who signed on as executive producer so the documentary could get out to the masses — as it should.

Marking Netflix’s second consecutive documentary appearance at the Academy Awards (2013’s The Square was its first), Virunga is unlike any film you’ve seen this Oscars season. Through fighting back tears, you find yourself covering your eyes then cheering on filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel, who puts himself in the middle of a war zone, making you pause and remind yourself: yes, this is real life. Von Einsiedel gets up close and personal with the very sources that threaten the gorillas as well as the biodiversity of the park, including hostile military forces who mistake areas of Virunga as their battleground amidst a dismal and deadly civil war that’s plaguing the country. And as if those fighting within their own homeland isn’t enough, oil companies (including Britain’s monolith Soco International) are crusading to tap into the park’s wealth of natural resources.

If there wasn’t a strong enough argument in favor of making renewable resources a worldwide reality, Virunga is it. Stream it post-Oscars, only on Netflix. Watch the trailer below.